EP: Statement of Intent

Here is my Statement of Intent for OUIL603 in which I discuss some of the briefs I am going to take on. It must be noted that these briefs are likely to change should different projects arise.

EP: Star-Lord Prints

Today I printed my Star-Lord pieces both in A3 for Thought Bubble and A2 for Travelling Man. I made the piece A3 and hadn't really thought about the visual quality of a scaled up version. Luckily, James told me there would be minimal loss of quality between the two sizes - however this is something for me to bare in mind in the future.

EP: Travelling Man Poster

Recently I took on a brief in which a group of level 6 students will each produce a poster for the Travelling Man Comic Store in conjunction with Thought Bubble 2015. I accepted this as it is a great opportunity for a wide range of people to see my work, and because I love comics.

Initially I decided to create a piece about a girl who falls in love with comics, this would be a poster but would have a small narrative to it. Evidence of this piece can be seen below;

However upon talking to the others in the group I realised a more commercial subject would be needed, with people making work about, My Neighbour Totoro, Futurama and The Dollars Trilogy. With this in mind I decided to put to use my Star Lord piece, which would now act as an A2 print for Travelling Man and separate A3 prints for Thought Bubble.

One rule of the poster design was that could only use these colours;

This helped resolve the earlier issue I had with my Star-Lord piece and its moody tones, which would now be brightened up with these colours. I spent a day playing around with these colours until I ended up with a variation I was happy with. Here is an example below, with the final outcome below that;

EP: Guardian Brief - Reflection

Whilst the end of this brief was a complete failure in terms of professionalism, overall I enjoyed working on this short project.

I found it interesting working in a different format (being 105mmx63mm) rather than the A format that I typically do. I may use different formats in later briefs, and possibly my CoP work. Additionally, I really enjoyed using texture again in my work and feel that my skill with it is definitely improving.

 I feel the exclusion of line work was an interesting choice as it is something that I rarely do. However, while certain editorial work does benefit from this visual quality, I can't see it becoming a permanent part of practice yet.

To summarise, I'd love to create work for the Guardian, and it is still one of my dreams, however by missing the submission, I feel that I have made that dream a bit harder for myself.

EP: Guardian Brief - Submission

Today was the submission deadline for the Guardian pieces and I forgot to submit on time! I could say this is due to a lack of sleep over the past few days, or because my girlfriend has been quiet ill recently, but ultimately I have only myself to blame for such monumental mistake.

I remembered the submission roughly an hour after the deadline and many of my peers suggested submitting anyway, however I feel that this would have been hugely unprofessional. This sort of mistake has never happened before and I feel foolish for it. However, I must live with my mistake.

Extended Practice: Potential Briefs

Here are a few additional brief's I could take on this year in the places of Studio Brief 2 or 3;

OffLife

I enjoyed the Offline competition in last years Responsive module and felt that it was the first time I engaged with narrative in a way that I wanted. Although I didn’t win last year - I am eager to give it another shot. I feel that my narrative and illustrative skills have come a long way since January and I feel that I have a much greater chance of getting work published in their magazine. The only downside to this brief is that I don’t think my work has the quirkiness that the magazine usually produces.

House of Illustration

I was saddened to have not taken on a House of Illustration brief last year and feel that this would be a great chance to produce some work with a few tweaks to my current processes. House of illustration is well known public charity and gallery with ties to the folio society so the level of work quality must be of an incredibly high standard. Their book competition is open until January 2016 so this will allow for a bit of time after Thought Bubble to complete.

EP: Guardian Brief - Colouring

Having planned out the line work for my Guardian brief submission, I began the next step of adding colour. I've also noticed that the Guardian has a knack for including work with interesting textures so began adding it to my pieces also.

Here are some examples of previous Guardian illustrations;



By Eva Bee



By Sebastian Thibault

Here are my Portfolio and Analogue pieces coloured with texture;





I intended to produce my Career piece in exactly the same way, however I ended up playing around the piece ended up as such;



I felt lack of line work to be a nice visual, so applied the same method to my initial two pieces also;





I much preferred this outcome as it gave a visual aesthetic more akin to that seen in the Guardian pieces I exampled. I could easily spend another few days working on  these, however with a very busy schedule at the moment I feel that it is time to draw a line through these pieces.

EP: Guardian Brief

Recently we were invited to create three images involving portfolio creation and career opportunities for the Guardian newspaper. I have chosen this to be Studio Brief 6 as I already have my initial 5 briefs in mind.

I initially struggled for ideas, eventually deciding on having them movie based scenes altered to include the topic of the pieces.

For the perfect portfolio I created an illustration of John Travolta's Vincent Vega looking into the mysterious briefcase seen throughout the film. However in this instance I changed the briefcase to a portfolio.




Following this I used the scene from American Beauty when Kevin Spacey's character fantasises about Mena Suvari's Angela Hayes. I replaced the famous rose petal's with CV's as a way of suggesting career opportunities.



Finally, I made a piece to comment on the argument of Analogue v Digital and used a shot of Harrison Ford's Han Solo from Star Wars: A New Hope. Here Solo famously shoots a bounty hunter looking for him, instead I replaced the hunter with an iMac to suggest Solo's preference to using analogue to digital.



I feel there is much more to be done on these pieces, but am happy so far with my chosen images for the brief.

EP: Studio Brief 1 - Brief Sheet

Here is the brief sheet for Studio Brief 1;